When sequelitis strikes (and when it doesn’t)

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Ever since I was a kid, I’ve done my best to practice universal tolerance and understanding, but I’ve failed with one key species: orcs. Those nasty green buggers have hunted my hide in more computer and video games than I could possibly count, and I’ve devoted most of my life to exterminating as many of them as my mundane and magical arsenals will allow. So you can imagine the delight that coursed through my body when I fired up Orcs Must Die! 2, the follow-up to the surprisingly popular (and, for me at least, spiritually satisfying) tower defense style game in which… Seriously, if you can’t figure it out from the title, no explanation from me will help you. I’d loved its predecessor, and the opportunity to flatten thousands more of those marauding monsters was too good to pass up.

But soon after I’d started playing, I realized I wasn’t feeling well. I was getting a headache from seeing graphics I’d previously stared at for hours at a stretch. There was an increasingly loud ringing in my ears from music that didn’t just sound exactly the same but was exactly the same. My mind was getting fatigued from solving so many familiar problems in familiar ways, without a lot of new ammunition to solve them — there were some new traps and weapons to utilize, but things just hadn’t evolved at all.

As the one-dimensional voice acting, eye-rollingly lame jokes, and uninventive level design kept rolling over me, I realized what had happened. I had been struck by one of the most virulent and annoying diseases known to the modern gamer. Yes, the dreaded sequelitis.

It’s communicative by the saddest means imaginable: a game company so wants to capitalize on one title that it forgets that innovation is what made the original special, and includes but trace quantities of it the second time around. The cure is, thankfully, simple. All you have to do is stop playing and move on to something else. But knowing the prescription and actually being able to swallow it are two incredibly different things.

I muscled through with Orcs Must Die! 2, enjoying it on more or less the level I’d enjoyed the first game, but ultimately found it a bit of a trial. There was a small handful of advancements — some new weapons and a cooperative multiplayer mode (which is practically required on certain levels, given their difficulty) — but not enough to make a dent. I was really hoping that developer Robot Entertainment would find a way to extend the concept, not just put it on infinite repeat.

Although I despaired a bit about this situation, I’m happy to say my blues did not linger long. A few other sequels were recently released that proved to me that the infection I’d endured was not to be a chronic one, and that changes, big or small, are still capable of creeping into places where you most want to find them (but all too seldom do).

For starters, I was surprisingly taken with Guild Wars 2. Never having been a huge fan of the first one, I approached it with some trepidation, but found myself immersed in it immediately. From a visual standpoint, the world was rich and full of character — obviously fantastic and whimsical, and yet sensible and consistent on its own terms. Quests, both major and minor, generally made sense, and kept me alert through early stages that in most MMORPGs are usually only about slogging. (I’m looking at you, World of Warcraft.) The character creation process was thrillingly personal, and even thought-provoking; not since the days of Ultimas IV, V, and VI have I put as much thought into some of the choices I made to define my avatar’s personality. And a lot of the cut-scene interludes that pushed my personal story along drew on exactly those decisions, something that’s uncommon outside of games like those in the Mass Effect series.

Everything I did struck me as having a genuine impact on both my game and the larger community I was a part of. Plus, the enormous world to explore suggested nearly limitless options for playing as much or as little as I wanted, without ever feeling I was being pushed (or, perhaps more accurately, rushed) along until I was ready. A lot of the value of Guild Wars derived from the campaigns that were added later, but out of the box Guild Wars 2 was so satisfying to me that it seemed like a half a dozen different games in one. I don’t think I’m even close to “completing” one storyline yet, let alone them all, but I’m really excited to keep at it. There may be some similarities with Guild Wars, but ArenaNet has done so much fresh and new that I found it impossible to dwell on them too much.

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u only just realized? i have not bought a new pc game in years, what is the point? they are all rubbish FPS games, for e.g i was given a copy of dungeon siege 3 the other day (i have the all the predecessors, i loved 1, loa, and 2) but ds3 is dumb ed down console rubbish nothing like the games that came before it seems the developers just released an average ” adventure game” under the dungeon siege brand (im glad i not buy it) to cash in..

i have not upgraded my agp rig (even tho it is still very capable) in years nor bought any new overpriced games, as there are NO decent games coming out (except maybe xcom:enemy unknown) but to me it does not look quite as good as the original.. most games these days are just “call of duty” style games, and i hate them!! those games are for school boys or dead head factory workers, to me the only real FPS games worht playing are half life and doom series… where is the cool flight sims, the space trading games? proper hardcore role playing adventure games? i did enjoy legend of grimmrock a throwback to oldschool stuff (eye of beholder, ishar series etc) I as a gamer want to play proper games..

this is why im a retro gamer, i have an old dos pc, and several amiga’s because the games that came out in the eighties and early to mid 90’s to me was when games where cool and still are… :-)

http://twitter.com/BondJunk junk bond

I’m perhaps not as retro myself, having a modern rig and running older systems in a VM and emulators, but I’d have to agree that the gaming industry is in regress at least since the turn of the millennium. It probably has to do with consolidation and molochs like ATVI-B, EA and to a lesser extent UbiS that acquire and destroy anything with potential value. Just like rating specialist do with perfectly good TV shows, reworking them to make them fit this and that demographic or spice them up. It got to the point where they ruined TV completely and the Gaming industry is in a similar situation, except we dont have a game version of a reality show yet. WoW would qualify, except its production value is too high. If they could come up with a similar formula only made on the cheap (SL perhaps?), that would be the end of gaming.

I even found Skyrim to be sort of dissapointing, despite the great reviews and the fact that I have not found a use for a joystick since Freespace 2, makes me sad.

James Tolson

yes, a man of my own heart lol.. all the best game developers are snapped up by publishers themselves bought out by other publishers, game rights are then locked between competitors in so ending franchises, popular example of this was the Homeworld series. as for TV shows u are 100% right i commented on a forum the other day about bringing back star trek, i would love to see a new star trek show however i would not, the reason is this.. star trek in its 90’s format was cool tng, ds9 and maybe voy.. however if it was made today they would ruin it, probably make it about kids and make 1 a werewolf or vampire or sumthin? and make it like one tree hill with crap music in the background constantly… either that or make it one those really bad american style “reality” show rubbish lol…

skyrim to me was not my favorite elder scrolls, for me it is a toss up between daggarfall and morrowiind, (latter i think) again skyrim was dumb ed down with its console style gameplay, my biggest annoyance is the fast travel system and damn QUEST MARKERS lol.. morrowind was cool as you had to read books and complete quests by using your head and actually READING!! i don’t like it when all u have to do is follow markers :-(